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The unbearable slowness of being: Why do we live at 10 bits/s?

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Re: The unbearable slowness of being: Why do we live at 10 bits/s?

#171

Post by kbelder »

aithrowawaycomm wrote: post #14

I think the authors are using information theory to inappropriately flatten the complexity of the problem. On one hand we have “bits” of pre-processed sensory measurement data, then on the other hand we have “bits” of post-processed symbolic data: in many cases directly so via human language, but that would also include “the Terran unit moved a short distance” as a compact summary of a bunch of pixels updating in Sta…

I'm running a chat LLM on my local pc. It spits out text just slightly faster than I can type, but it is using much of my CPU and redlining my GPU.

Is it processing at a dozen bits per second, or hundreds of millions?

If the text the LLM generates is "that is true", can I consider that one bit of information?

I agree, they're artificially simplifying the framing of the question to generate a lower number than is sensible.

Re: The unbearable slowness of being: Why do we live at 10 bits/s?

#172

Post by ziddoap »

kens wrote: post #160
sigmoid10 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has anyone here even read more than the title? The article literally explains that you perceive at a rate of 10^9 bits per second. But after filtering and preprocessing in the outer brain you are only left with about 10 bits per second for conscious processing for things like motor functions. Yes, you can see a Rubic's cube and perceive all sorts of facts about it and the environment at the same time. But try solving…

> Has anyone here even read more than the title? Since it costs $35.95 to read the article, probably not. Seriously, paywalling of scientific research is obviously wrong.

>Seriously, paywalling of scientific research is obviously wrong.

Agreed!

Here you go: https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.10234

Re: The unbearable slowness of being: Why do we live at 10 bits/s?

#173

Post by sigmoid10 »

wbl wrote: post #162
sigmoid10 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has anyone here even read more than the title? The article literally explains that you perceive at a rate of 10^9 bits per second. But after filtering and preprocessing in the outer brain you are only left with about 10 bits per second for conscious processing for things like motor functions. Yes, you can see a Rubic's cube and perceive all sorts of facts about it and the environment at the same time. But try solving…

What conscious motor processing? My motor functions largely take care of themselves while I daydream when walking or consider where I want to steer while driving.

That's just motor reflexes that don't even enter higher cognitive processing. But daydreaming probably does process at the same rate as normal language, as was explained in the other comment. Try doing algebra in your head while running an obstacle course you've never seen and you'll be much slower at everything.

Re: The unbearable slowness of being: Why do we live at 10 bits/s?

#175

Post by DamonHD »

MrMcCall wrote: post #67
GeoAtreides wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly don't understand why it would be funny or in a gray area to recommend people to actual read the paper?

Asking people to read the article before commenting? A commonsense suggestion that needs to be made makes me smirk inside, not the least because I am guilty of this, too, around here. (But not this time, thank you, kind Sir.) As to being in a "gray area", have you read the posting guidelines? ;-) I'm pretty sure it says we shouldn't say things like "read the article" or "you haven't read the article, have you?" in ou…

I am very very annoyed by many of the shallow "it's obviously wrong" comments on this story. And thank you to those rebutting more politely than I feel inclined to.

It's a fascinating paper and something that I have been interested in since before [0] and ties in to a strand of work in my PhD research. Also see for example [1].

[0] Stevens, M. Sensory Ecology, Behaviour, and Evolution, OUP Oxford, 2013, ISBN 9780199601783, LCCN 2012554461

[1] Coupé, Christophe and Oh, Yoon Mi and Dediu, Dan and Pellegrino, François Different languages, similar encoding efficiency: Comparable information rates across the human communicative niche, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 2019-09, Science Advances, volume 5, report/number 9, ISSN 2375-2548, doi:10.1126/sciadv.aaw2594

Re: The unbearable slowness of being: Why do we live at 10 bits/s?

#176

Post by sigmoid10 »

xattt wrote: post #169
sigmoid10 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has anyone here even read more than the title? The article literally explains that you perceive at a rate of 10^9 bits per second. But after filtering and preprocessing in the outer brain you are only left with about 10 bits per second for conscious processing for things like motor functions. Yes, you can see a Rubic's cube and perceive all sorts of facts about it and the environment at the same time. But try solving…

Listen to a podcast at double speed. Assuming a normal talking speed of 150 words per minute, 300 words per minute of written word is not 10 bits per second.

Consider normal text compression and you're left with a few bits at best for most of those "fast talkers/listeners." And the human brain is very good at compression.

Re: The unbearable slowness of being: Why do we live at 10 bits/s?

#177

Post by hathawsh »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #142
gtirloni wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My thoughts exactly. It makes no sense to me that what I'm thinking and perceiving in real-time is the equivalent of 10 bit/s of data.

Has anyone here even read more than the title? The article literally explains that you perceive at a rate of 10^9 bits per second. But after filtering and preprocessing in the outer brain you are only left with about 10 bits per second for conscious processing for things like motor functions. Yes, you can see a Rubic's cube and perceive all sorts of facts about it and the environment at the same time. But try solving…

Another way to put it: try to perform a skill you have never practiced. For example, if you've never played the piano or tried to read sheet music, see how long it takes you to play a few notes correctly. It's complex enough that you'll very likely find yourself limited to around 10 bits per second. You shouldn't count the bits handled by visual processing, basic motor control, and other things you have practiced all your life. If you practice the skill, the skill moves out of your conscious processing and no longer counts toward the 10 bits per second.

Re: The unbearable slowness of being: Why do we live at 10 bits/s?

#178

Post by kijin »

gtirloni wrote: post #125
tsimionescu wrote: post #100

It seems very odd that the article seems to be measuring the information content of specific tasks that the brain is doing or specific objects that it is perceiving. But the brain is a general-purpose computer, not a speed-card computer, or English text computer, or binary digit computer, or Rubik's cube computer. When you look at a Rubik's cube, you don't just pick out specific positions of colored squares relative…

My thoughts exactly. It makes no sense to me that what I'm thinking and perceiving in real-time is the equivalent of 10 bit/s of data.

Send a query to your favorite database. The database preprocesses hundreds of gigabytes of data, map-reduces it, and finally returns a single 32-bit integer, taking exactly 3.2 seconds to do so.

Nobody would say that the database can only process 10 bits per second. The query just happened to ask for a very simplified answer.

Re: The unbearable slowness of being: Why do we live at 10 bits/s?

#179

Post by digging »

spigottoday wrote: post #152
digging wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's a classic example of the power and skill of your "unconscious" mind - your consciousness is freed up to do novel work because the drive home is so routine that your unconscious mind can do almost all of the work. Should something change - a traffic jam, a detour, a pedestrian crossing the road - your conscious attention will be called back to the more urgent task which is making a decision about how to hand…

It seams interesting to me that what we refer to as the conscious mind is unconscious a third of each day and the part we call unconscious is active 24 by 7.

I'm out of my depth here, but a high-level response:

First, I don't think the "unconscious" part is a single process, but myriad processes, and I'd bet they wax and wane.

Second, the "conscious" part is the part that can reason about itself and think abstractly. I think it would be correct to say it's doing higher level computations. The important part is that this is more costly - it's not optimized because it has to be flexible, so it would make sense that it's resting as often as possible.

Re: The unbearable slowness of being: Why do we live at 10 bits/s?

#180

Post by scotty79 »

kijin wrote: post #178
gtirloni wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My thoughts exactly. It makes no sense to me that what I'm thinking and perceiving in real-time is the equivalent of 10 bit/s of data.

Send a query to your favorite database. The database preprocesses hundreds of gigabytes of data, map-reduces it, and finally returns a single 32-bit integer, taking exactly 3.2 seconds to do so. Nobody would say that the database can only process 10 bits per second. The query just happened to ask for a very simplified answer.

Everybody would say it outputs 10 bits per second. And when it comes to consciousness simplified answers at 10 bits per second is the best you can get. This article asks why.
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